John 21 – Just A Little Out Of This World

By Neil Earle

The so-called Jesus Boat was discovered on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee in 1986.

Not to get too colloquial about it but what was the resurrected Son of God doing planning a barbecue on the beach?

“Come again,” you may say.

Well, yes. John’s Gospel, Chapter 21 – which some say feels like an epilogue to John’s deeply meaningful record – shows the resurrected Jesus hosting a breakfast BBQ for seven of his disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

If it seems like a shocker remember its been there almost 1900 years.

Concrete Reporting

The Bible is a little – well quite a bit actually – out of this world as it is but the beauty of the Gospel records is that they take us a bit out of this world while grounding us solidly in earthly things. John 21 shows the writer’s bent for concrete eyewitness authenticity – seven names are mentioned, the boat was 100 yards from shore, there were 153 fish caught and it was a charcoal fire.

The God-Man

When our minds come to grips with the fact that the Risen Lord, Jesus of the Bible, who had access to the Father and all things in the heavenly realm was still able to appear after his resurrection and host a fish BBQ, it does make us think about the nature of the resurrected body he had, one that we are destined to possess as well (Philippians 3:21).

Jesus’ bodily nature was clarified at the Council of Chalcedon 451 AD.

Presbyterian scholar Gerritt Dawson loves to explore these ideas. He asks us to set aside the “drop-in” theory that Jesus put on a skin suit, as it were, when he became human, and then unzipped it when he returned to heaven to become God again.

No, says Dawson, this idea is misleading.

Our hope for the future is that Jesus was raided bodily, he ascended to heaven in the self-same body – though glorified – that he had as a human being. That is why the disciples recognized him in the upper room even though his body could pass through walls. It is why John did on the shore of Galilee. St. Paul taught plainly, There is a natural body and a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44).

This gets at the implications of the Christian doctrine of the Atonement.

As our Atonement Jesus links God and man, says Dawson. He links heaven and earth. Since he possesses glorified flesh he had access to both before his final ascension outside Jerusalem. After that time we know and recognize Jesus through the Holy Spirit inside us and no longer according to the flesh (2 Corinthians 5:16).

This is why St. Paul told the Greeks that we have a Man in heaven – God will judge the world through the Man he has chosen whom he raised from the dead (Acts 17).

Jesus is joined to us fallen creatures in his humanity and joined to God of course in his divinity and it is all rather marvelous and mysterious, even called a “mystery” of the faith—the mystery of goodliness (1 Timothy 3:16).

Across the centuries Christians have understood the reason for Jesus’ dual nature as the God-Man. The humanity of Jesus made possible his living with us for 3 some years in order for him to work out our healing from inside our human condition. He saved our wretched race by becoming one with us and yet living without sin. He obeyed God perfectly on our behalf so that we could live righteous lives by “putting on Jesus” – one of Paul’s striking analogies (Romans 13:14). But we also have Jesus living inside us as our Intercessor through the Holy Spirit (Colossians 1:27).

He is called the Proto-domos – our Forerunner – in Hebrews 6:20. He was perfect God and yet the One who was fully human, sacrificed for our iniquities but by his resurrection and ascension the securer of our innocence before the Father through the gift of his own blood. It is all rather marvelous but by becoming human and then retaining the marks of his humanity after his ascension we have an Advocate with the Father, the Mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5).

And that is why he could make breakfast for his disciples and show them and all of us that he is who he claimed to be – the God-Man Jesus Christ.

This summer as the national news outlets try to dictate their agenda of same-sex marriage, sex changes, fires, shark attacks, riot, flag tear-downs, protests, currency collapses, immigration – in the midst of all this I found myself saying, I think my congregation and I need to come to church and be taken out of this world just a little.

Otherwise we may well go under beneath the pummeling of the incessant 24/7 media.

Sea of Galilee today.

John 21 fits the bill.

Seven men are named in John 21:1-3 and they all have a past. Peter the first is the acknowledged leader but he has a reputation for denying his master at a crucial time. He can be unsteady and unready in crucial times. Has he really been forgiven? Is Jesus still going to use him as his main man? Thomas was a famous doubter who finally came through. But that was recent. Can Christ use him in minsitry again?

They go fishing on the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias as the Romans renamed it).

They are experienced professionals but…they catch nothing.

Depending on Jesus

A stranger appears on the shore and he calls out: “Have you caught any?”

“No” they answer.

“Then cast your net on the opposite side of the boat.”

They do and the nets are soon straining under an enormous catch.

It dawns on “the disciple Jesus loved” that this is Jesus Himself on the shoreline. This miracle recalls the earlier one in Luke 5 when Jesus told them they’d become fishers of men.

“It’s Jesus himself” John tells Peter.

So we have a miracle scene and a recognition scene and as our wise teachers tell us, the whole Gospel of John is answering that fundamental question – Who is Jesus?

In Chapter 1 we see him as the Cosmic Christ, the eternal Word from the beginning of creation. Across the gospel story we learn that Jesus identified himself as God – I and my Father are one. “You believe in God, believe also in me.”

Then the resurrected Jesus appeared to them in the upper room in Jerusalem. Twice he showed them his wounded body but a body now glorified through resurrection.

Scholars know that external sources testify to Jesus Christ.

Who made breakfast?

Now he is on the shore in Galilee as he told them he would be. And Peter displaying that impulsiveness that must have made him a fun person to be around, jumped into the water and swam ashore. They all get to shore and find…a fire of burning coals with fish and bread laid on it.

“Hello,” as the British might say, “what’s this ‘ere?”

Jesus has made breakfast. The resurrected eternal Word who died now glorified but glorified in his human body is making breakfast. Did he split the dish and break the bread? Apparently. John 21:12 Jesus says “Come and have breakfast.”

Surely this has to be one of the most human and touching out-of-this-world events in an out-of-this world account we call the Life of Jesus. A man some had seen arrested, beaten and crucified comes back to life displaying his wounds and he now stoops down to prepare a fish and bread breakfast.

He also does a typical thing that they had seen before when he had eaten with them, “he took the bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish” (21:13). And the author drives home the lesson to be learned from yet another sacred meal with the risen Lord: “This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.”

Out of this world eh?

Jesus often surprised his closest disciples.

We are forgiven

Exactly and not only is this event recorded as John’s three-fold eye-witness vindication of the resurrection but it also shows Jesus had completely forgiven and reinstated his disciples. Their commission to become fishers of men has not changed. Even Peter – who denied the Lord three times – is exonerated three times in a pubic interview for all the church to know that Peter was his man (21:15-19). And so were the other six. And so were all the others that came after them…and so are you and I.

It’s all right. Jesus not only loves us and forgives us, he likes us. He invites us to a barbecue which even in North American culture is an ultimately friendly gesture.

And it’s all a little bit out of this world and at times in our lives that’s just what we need. A little touch of super-nature, a little gesture towards the thought that the 9-5 reality we see depicted on the nightly news is not the ultimate reality at all.

Its important that we watch the news, it’s important that we have good jobs and support ourselves and those who depend on us but…those hard facts should not dull us to the eternal realities that are all about us were we to stop and think about it. Nothing is more normal than having breakfast but when Jesus is in the picture things get transformed. The everyday becomes mighty special and that’s one of the great implications of what theologians call the incarnation, the claim that in Jesus the eternal God appeared in human form. As John said in the beginning of his Gospel, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

So everything is all right. Peter failed, Thomas failed, the disciples all left him and fled but…their hearts were in the right place. They were forgiven, reinstated and assured through a miracle of 153 fish that they were in good with the Master. Jesus not only loved them but he liked them – he made them breakfast, a peaceful and reconciling gesture.

You can’t beat that. Thus, the plan and program that we are all engaged upon with our Lord and Savior is truly wonderful. It is truly out of this world.